Horizon: Zero Dawn is an especially efficient game, so it’s no surprise that the in-game world is a little bit smaller — or less filled with bloat, if you prefer — than others.
YouTuber How Big is the Map? has a very simple mission: Load up the video game, and walk across the map. They’ve been doing it for years, and as they’ve discovered recently, Horizon: Zero Dawn ain’t that big.
Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, for instance, took almost two and a half hours to walk — and swim — across the entirety of Ubisoft’s Egypt. Aloy’s journey, on the other hand, will take you just under an hour if you’re being patient. And if you want to sprint the whole way? Just over 30 minutes.
It’s really nothing compared to a lot of other open-world games, like Fallout. And it’s absolutely nothing on Daggerfall, which is a miserable 69 hours-plus of crinching and crunching until you get from one end of the world to the other.
I think this works in Horizon Zero Dawn‘s favour, though. Nobody really wants an open world that’s just empty or filled with uninteresting junk for hours on end. I want it to be alive, to be brimming with activity that makes it feel like the virtual world thrives and revolves without my direct input.
That said, I do wonder how long it’d take to fly across the map — world? — in Microsoft Flight Simulator now. I wonder if How Big is the Map? would take that challenge on.
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